Alec Baldwin Launches Twitter Rant Against Reporter

Friday

Jun 28, 2013 at 12:22 PM

Alec Baldwin unloaded an expletive-filled Twitter rant against a journalist who claimed that his wife Hilaria had tweeted all through James Gandolfini's funeral.On Thursday, The Daily Mail published an article by George Stark that said, "It may not be considered ...

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Alec Baldwin unloaded an expletive-filled Twitter rant against a journalist who claimed that his wife Hilaria had tweeted all through James Gandolfini's funeral.

On Thursday, The Daily Mail published an article by George Stark that said, "It may not be considered funeral etiquette, but Alec Baldwin and his heavily pregnant wife Hilaria took to Twitter during James Gandolfini's service today. The pregnant yoga instructor's social media feed was full of upbeat posts ... Messages included a request for ideas about wedding anniversary presents and promotional notes about her upcoming appearance on the Rachael Ray show." (Hilaria's Twitter page shows a series of retweets, not original tweets.)

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After catching wind of the story, Baldwin immediately went on a Twitter rampage, writing, "My wife and I attend a funeral to pay our respects to an old friend, and some toxic Brit writes this f---ing trash." He added: "George Stark, you lying little bitch. I am gonna f%#@ you up. ... I'm gonna find you, George Stark, you toxic little queen, and I'm gonna f--...you...up. ... I want all of my followers and beyond to straighten out this f---ing little bitch, George Stark."Baldwin insisted that his wife didn't use her phone during the funeral. "My wife DID NOT use her phone, in any capacity, at our friends [sic] funeral. Now, f--- this twitter + good luck to all of you who know the truth," he wrote before deleting his account. (Buzzfeed has posted screenshots of his rant here.)

Although Baldwin also added that he no longer has a publicist because he "fired them," his rep issued a statement on behalf of Baldwin Friday morning, saying, "It's disgraceful that a reporter would manufacture and publish a story and not call for comment or explanation - especially when it's intended to take away attention from honoring the memory of a beloved figure like James Gandolfini. There are multiple witnesses to the fact that Hilaria left her phone in the car and wouldn't, couldn't, and didn't tweet during the service."

Hilaria also defended herself on Twitter, saying, "FYI I don't believe in bringing phones into a funeral and I never did and I never would."

The whole thing was possibly a misunderstanding due to the fact that Twitter converts timestamps into the time zone the person reading them is in. Hilaria also pointed out via a retweet, "When someone tweets something at a certain time, and you retweet it later, it posts the TIME the first person tweeted."

This is the third time Baldwin has deleted his Twitter account. He first shut it down after his dispute with American Airlines in December 2011 when he was told to stop playing Words with Friends on a flight. He also briefly quit last summer after marrying Hilaria.